


and i on the opposite shore will be

by Larissa



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-22
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-10-22 17:15:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10701510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Larissa/pseuds/Larissa
Summary: Of all the lies she's ever told, this one comes the easiest to her lips."No," she says. "I didn't find my son."





	and i on the opposite shore will be

**Author's Note:**

> Set in the same verse as [the first step](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5379080), but it's not necessary to read that fic first.

Yellow eyes.

Nick.

_Nick._

"Hey, steady now—"

She lurches forward and hits ragged cloth over a metal chest. She's back.

Somehow, she wasn't really sure the relay would work the same way twice.

Her fingers curl around Nick's arms as she tries to catch her balance. Everything is still spinning.

_This can't be real. None of it is real._

"Ax? Hey, don't go givin' me the silent treatment now. Did it work? Did you make it?"

She looks around. It was night when she left. Now it's the middle of the day. Light glints off the scattered cars in the drive-in lot. There was no way to tell time down there. Everything was so bright. So clean. So… _wrong_.

"Shaun." It comes out as a choked gasp. She'd managed to hold it together down there, but now—

Nick's grip tightens on her. He's already made out that she's come back alone. Doesn't take a detective to figure out something's happened, but it helps.

Nick. Detective.

Nick Valentine, the _synth_ detective.

She pulls back from him.

Nick's yellow eyes stare at her, unblinking. "Ax?" he prods. "What happened? Did you find him?"

She turns away.

Her eyes dart to the side. Desdemona is gone. So is Tinker Tom. They must have gone back to the church to wait for news. Or maybe they didn't think she'd make it. Nick waited. Of course.

Of all the lies she's ever told, this one comes the easiest to her lips.

"No," she says. "I didn't find my son."

 

For the first time in 200 years, Axelle drinks.

Nick says he carries alcohol for the clients, but she's the only one he's had for going on a month now. She wonders if he's been waiting for her to crack. God knows she has been.

"So," Nick says, once she's well into the bottle.

"Don't."

The glowing eyes glance in her direction. They're holed up in the tiny little office at the Starlight Drive-In. No sense lighting a lamp. It's just a signal for every passing raider to attack.

"Alright," Nick says amicably, after a moment.

And sure enough he turns away and goes back to looking out the window, making sure no one's found their position.

"Just like that?" Axelle murmurs.

Nick shrugs. "Whatever happened down there is your business," he says. "Won't lie and say I'm not damned curious, but I'm in no rush. Got all the time in the world."

Time.

Right.

Time is the reason this all happened to begin with.

Of course, it doesn't matter to Nick. He's a synth. What _does_ time matter to him?

She thinks of the child again, the one she'd seen in Kellogg's mind. The one who was her son and wasn't.

She downs the rest of the bottle.

 

Nick wakes her in the morning.

Nick doesn't sleep. Nick doesn't eat. Nick is, in many ways, the ideal travelling partner. He has sensors to detect hostiles. He might be coming apart at the seams but what parts of his body do remain are resistant to all kinds of weaponry.

And when he wakes her in the morning his eyes turn down and he asks her in that quiet, concerned voice of his how she's feeling.

Axelle thinks of all of the synths she saw underground. Thinks of his programming. Thinks about the boy with red hair and blue eyes just like her own. Thinks about the man twice her age with white hair and a beard.

"Fine," she says. "Let's get moving."

Nick's eyebrows raise. "Where to?"

"I have a delivery to make."

 

Deep down, even though she hasn't told him anything, Axelle is glad Nick is the one with her.

She's been glad about it from the beginning.

Since Kellogg. Since the Memory Den.

Since the two of them walked through another man's mind to find the truth — a truth that has now been torn apart.

Axelle hasn't forgotten that moment she heard Kellogg's voice come out of Nick's mouth. She almost asked him to stay behind, then. She wonders sometimes what would have happened if she had. But it hadn't happened again. And at this point she didn't know what she would do if she did.

"Would you lay down your life for a synth?"

That was what Desdemona had asked her, when she found the Railroad. Nick had been standing right behind her, then. They'd fought off a half dozen super mutants to get to that point, not to mention all the ghouls in the church itself. And Nick had been there, watching her back. Keeping her safe.

And now…

Now she sees the child every time she closes her eyes.

Would she lay down her life to save that child? That boy who wasn't even hers, just a facsimile made in his image?

Would she lay down her life to save the man who truly _was_ her son? Who had grown up to do all manner of terrible things she'd been unable to prevent?

The man who now wanted her to track down a rogue synth who thought he was human?

It makes her head spin.

But Nick doesn't ask.

And she's grateful for the silence.

 

She half expects Nick to bail when he finds out where she's going.

He doesn't, though. He sticks with her, all the way through the Glowing Sea, all the way back to Virgil's cave. Just like he did the first time.

She doesn't know much about super mutants, but it seems like Virgil’s not doing good. He's moving around slower. Doesn't seem like he can work his fingers as well.

Virgil's only concern is his serum, of course. But that's not why she's here.

"I need you to tell me about Father."

"What? What does he have to do with anything? You— all that help I gave you—"

"Please, Virgil, calm down. I didn't say anything. I came to you because you're the only person who's made it out of the Institute alive. I need you… I need you to tell me what kind of person he is. What he's really like."

"…I don't understand. Why would you want to know that?"

"Please. It's— I can't tell you how important this is."

She's pulled off the hood of her hazmat suit, all but pleading with the super mutant. He peers at her through his glasses, then at the synth to her side, and gives a shake of his head.

"There isn't much to tell," Virgil says. "All the synths go on about him giving life to them, and that's true, but the synths are just a means to an ends for him. It's all about the future of humanity."

"Humanity as in—?"

"The Institute," Virgil says. "He only has a passing interest in the Commonwealth. It's a wonder my project ever got off the ground. The applications of it are enormous, but there was hardly any push for it within the Institute, and certainly not from Father."

"What about his personal life?" Axelle presses. "Is he married?"

Virgil gives her a blank look. "No," he says.

"What about friends? Does he have anyone close to him?"

"He's… Father," Virgil says. "I don't think he's ever had anyone close to him."

Axelle steps away. One of Virgil's Protectrons totters past her. She says nothing for a moment.

"Why are you asking all this?" Virgil asks.

She doesn't answer. She places a vial on the table by his terminal and does up the hood on her hazmat suit. She turns to Nick.

"We're done. Come on."

 

She wanders, aimlessly.

There's no shortage of things to do, so she does them. Someone wants help clearing out some raiders? She can do that. You need help with the Gunners? She's on it.

It’s easy to lose herself in the work. This is what she’s good at. Only thing she’s ever been good at.

(Sometimes, when the battlefield quiets and gunfire smoke fills the air, she thinks of home — not here, not the Commonwealth but _home_ , an ocean and a lifetime away.)

Axelle avoids the Railroad and the Brotherhood both. Too many questions she can’t answer.

The only difference is that the synths don't attack her anymore. Whatever programming drives them recognizes both her and Nick as friendlies.

It makes her feel queasy.

 

Eventually Nick comes to her with a request of his own.

It’s important to him, she gets that, but she gets the feeling he’s mentioning it not because he’s in a hurry to find these holotapes, but because he feels like she needs something to do. It grates on her nerves because he’s right. 

Every time she closes her eyes for the night, she sees the glistening white walls of the Institute. Hears the low hum of their power generators. Every time she catches sight of her own reflection she sees a glimpse of that child. Every elderly man becomes _him_.

It’s too much. It’s too _much_ and she can’t take it.

So she deals with Nick’s problems instead.

 

They already have a couple of holotapes, from the way they’ve been criss-crossing the Commonwealth, and finding the rest is a only a matter of time and effort. Finding Eddie Winter’s bunker is a little trickier, but after everything else they’ve been through — after Kellogg — it’s not too much trouble.

Axelle leaves the confrontation to Nick. This is for him. She’s just along for the ride.

It’s afterwards that gets to her.

Nick tells her he’s realized it’s all about justice. Doing what’s right. That they’re all about goodness. And even though she’s spent a lifetime away from such concepts, something inside her flickers to life at his words.

When Axelle had gone looking for Shaun, she hadn’t dared to hope. Not even as she’d started finding clues of Kellogg. The thought that she might have missed ten years of her son’s life had almost been too much. To find him a man grown— that was beyond anything she had imagined.

But he is grown, and she has not been there for him. And given the chance—

She’d run.

She was always good at running away.

 

“I have to go back to the Institute.”

Nick’s face can only move so much, but that doesn’t mean he can’t look confused. “Back? Why in blazes would you go back in there?”

“There’s something I have to do.”

Nick presses her. Axelle doesn’t answer.

 

This time, when Axelle teleports in, she’s not loaded down with every weapon she can carry. She’s not crouching behind every corner to check for hostiles. Instead she walks calmly to the elevator.

The first synth she finds is only too happy to give her directions.

The man before her is still twice her age. He still has the same blue eyes she remembers. He has the same nose as her husband. The same ears.

The joy in his expression eats at her from the inside out.

“Mother,” he says. “I’m so pleased you chose to return.”

“Hello, Shaun,” Axelle replies. “You had a job for me?”

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote most of this fic about halfway through my first playthrough of Fallout 4, in November 2015, and it reflects a lot of my feelings about this point of the storyline. It's taken me so long to post this because I was never really able to achieve what I wanted to with this fic, but it's to the point that I would rather post it in this state than have it live on my hard drive forever.
> 
> Title is a line from [Paul Revere's Ride](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1861/01/paul-revere-s-ride/308349/) because I couldn't resist.


End file.
